Building v buying hifi speakers

One of the problems of using Hi-Fi speakers for parties is that while a lot of them can go fucking loud they're not designed to do it for hours on end so even if you're not clipping them they can still get fried.

my idea is to play amazing records on an amazing system to people in small venues (50 people), people that are sitting down and are there to appreciate the quality of the music and equipment used to reproduce the recordings.

not djs playing dance music through an average system which you can find this sort of gig anywhere

Yeah totally, and I do like the idea... Very David Mancuso... And for £900 you will get a very nice pair of secondhand speakers, as long as you don't rag the arse out of them they will probably be OK but I do think they'll bite the big one in the long run... I love this tune, turn it up a bit... Pop.

Maybe try to get to a specialist vintage audio shop like Audio Gold to see what they have and what you like the sound of...

One of main things to be wary of with this sort of thing is ferro-fluid cooled tweeters, the fluid dries up over time, and stops the cooling process working so when you crank them up they can burn out...

You said you'll be putting the speakers behind a bar, they should be in the £700-900 range and it sounds like they need to be portable.

The kinds of things featured in those articles fail on all three of those criteria.

You also say you are thinking of audiences of 50 people... what is normally considered as 'hifi' is designed to sound good within an area of a sofa or perhaps one part of a living room. You can't fit 50 people into that area.

A brief look at that site suggests whoever runs it has zero clue about how speakers work. Old point source studio monitors stacked in a big pile does not a good PA system make. Hipster nonsense.

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Sounded pretty good to me - it’s not for everyone and doesn’t sound as crisp and tight as a good PA but sound can be quite subjective can’t it - it had other qualities that some prefer to the detail and transient response which can sound quite clinical - it suits some styles of music better - reggae systems are generally not that good in a purely objective sense but fit the music perfectly

Why not? They are extremely good studio monitors driven by hi-do amps, nothing like PA stacks

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Because there is a big stack of them - from any point in the room the path from each speaker to the ear will be slightly different, meaning that the sound arrives at a slightly different time and you lose all the crispness that those kinds of speakers were designed to provide. Studio monitors are also generally quite directional meaning that you lose sound quality as you move away from a position directly in line with them.

I appreciate a good sound system - but it needs to be designed for the job. If you look at the best 'club' sound systems (and the best ones are much much better than a standard pair of PA cabinets) they look nothing like this.

Reggae stacks do a different job again; they are designed to optimise different stuff.

Because there is a big stack of them - from any point in the room the path from each speaker to the ear will be slightly different, meaning that the sound arrives at a slightly different time and you lose all the crispness that those kinds of speakers were designed to provide. Studio monitors are also generally quite directional meaning that you lose sound quality as you move away from a position directly in line with them.

I appreciate a good sound system - but it needs to be designed for the job. If you look at the best 'club' sound systems (and the best ones are much much better than a standard pair of PA cabinets) they look nothing like this.

Reggae stacks do a different job again; they are designed to optimise different stuff.

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Nah, small venues often have 2 stacks of speakers with no delays and I'm pretty sure these big old monitors are not directional in the way nearfields are